UNHCR's Mid-Year Trends report says 5.5 million people newly displaced and 1.4 million new refugees in first half of 2014
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) published its Mid-Year Trends 2014 report on January 7th.
The report, which analyses displacement trends within the first half of 2014, can be read here.
According to the UNHCR, wars and conflicts in large swathes of the Middle East and Africa led to a record number of people being displaced in the six months to the end of June 2014.
Some 5.5 million people were newly displaced, UNHCR says, with 1.4 million of those fleeing across international borders and becoming refugees. That brought the number of people being helped by UNHCR to a record high of 46.3 million as of mid-2014.
UNHCR says Syrians have now become the largest refugee population under UNHCR's mandate, pushing Afghans into second place. There were more than three million Syrian refugees as of June 2014, compared to 2.7 million Afghan refugees.
After Syria and Afghanistan, UNHCR says the leading countries of origin of refugees are Somalia (1.1 million), Sudan (670,000), South Sudan (509,000), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (493,000), Myanmar (480,000) and Iraq (426,000).
In all, the number of refugees under UNHCR's mandate reached 13 million by mid-year, the highest number since 1996.
Pakistan was the largest host country of refugees (1.6 million), ahead of Lebanon (1.1 million), Iran (982,000), Turkey (824,000), Jordan (737,000), Ethiopia (588,000), Kenya (537,000) and Chad (455,000).
"In 2014, we have seen the number of people under our care grow to unprecedented levels. As long as the international community continues to fail to find political solutions to existing conflicts and to prevent new ones from starting, we will continue to have to deal with the dramatic humanitarian consequences," António Guterres, head of UNHCR, was quoted as saying.
"The economic, social and human cost of caring for refugees and the internally displaced is being borne mostly by poor communities, those who are least able to afford it."